PRESS RELEASE FOR 2023 PROGRAM
Women’s Empowerment Draft builds K-12 fanbase through pro-sports traditions
A college-led program continues to build enthusiasm for Women’s History Month by borrowing iconic traditions from professional sports. The 2023 Women’s Empowerment Draft will feature daily social media tributes to female trailblazers with portraits in the color palette of nearby professional basketball teams. The program’s inaugural year was featured on the NFL Network’s NFL360 in 2020, as thirty-two college students celebrated icons, wearing colorful football jerseys emblazoned with those icons’ faces in the color palette of that region’s NFL team.
This year’s draft seeks to involve thirty K-12 schools, fittingly named for trailblazing women and located in regions with professional basketball teams. For instance, PS8 Elementary of Brooklyn was recently named for Emily Warren Roebling. On March 31, the W.E. Draft will post a tribute including Roebling’s important role in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. The program also features sports-inspired trading cards and basketball jerseys featuring Roebling in the colors of the nearby professional basketball team.
The program is produced as an extracurricular internship at NYC’s The New School, where college students researched icons and schools from their own hometown. Junior Eliane Baijal of Washington DC researched and chose to honor Ida B. Wells after discovering a namesake school in her hometown. Aishwarya Moudgal of Dublin, CA reached out to both Amy Imai Elementary and Betty Reid Soskin Middle School, both Bay Area schools to participate. First-year student Caia Hammons-Giesecke will be raising awareness about Clara Brown Entrepreneurial Academy’s namesake in Aurora, Colorado. The portraits were commissioned by artist Rori, of St. Louis, MO. Dan Napolitano, Chief of Staff at The New School, serves as the founding director of the program.
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“The program’s value is in building a culture shift in hero worship,” shared Napolitano. “Boys and girls wear sports jerseys of male athletes but we need to raise up new voices in creative ways.” Napolitano notes a struggle to identify schools named for women when most states have less than 4 percent named for a female icon compared to roughly 15 percent named for men, and over 30 percent named for towns named for men. Some cities researched had only one or two possible choices named for women.
The college students are seeking supporters to share the daily posts and plan to openly invite the NBA, WNBA, Nike, and other sports-related companies to share the daily tributes tagging #WEDraft2023. Most importantly, by partnering with 30 K-12 schools, the college students hope those teachers, students, and families will take personal pride in sharing the star power of their school’s namesake.
“It is a grassroots effort,” added Eliane Baijal, “It combines art, history, equity, and the power of community organizing to turn a name above the school entryway into a superstar.”